Breast Pump 'Hackathon' Seeks Better Tech for Busy Moms

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Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are
on a mission to make the breast-feeding experience better for
moms.

This weekend, the school's Media Lab is hosting a hackathon to
come up with new designs for breast pumps, which are machines
used by
nursing moms to extract milk when they're away from their
little ones. The event, aptly named the "Make the Breast Pump Not
Suck" Hackathon, will be held Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 20-21)
at MIT's Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

For many mothers with young children, particularly those who
work outside the home, a breast pump is an essential tool.
But these machines, which work by creating and releasing suction
in much the same way as a suckling baby, are wrought with a
number of design problems, which the "hackers" — designers,
coders, engineers, students, midwives, health care professionals,
parents and breast pump manufacturers — hope to improve upon this
weekend. [ Wonder
Woman: 10 Interesting Facts About the Female Body ]

"The breast pump is a key technology in extending the nursing
relationship and providing babies with breast
milk for longer. But most women will tell you that the
experience of using the breast pump sucks, literally and
figuratively," Catherine D'Ignazio, a research assistant at MIT's
Center for Civic Media, wrote in a Media Lab blog post. D'Ignazio
was one of the organizers of a previous breast pump hackathon
that was held in May.

D'Ignazio's blog post details the many issues of using a pump,
including:

"We talked about creating a breast pump as an intelligent object,
maybe a 'smarter' breast pump, breast pumps with sensors that
would adapt their function based on individual physiologic
responses, new thoughts about power sources and portability, the
ability to add social sharing or even 'gamification' aspects to
the pumping process," Nancy Holtzman, a lactation consultantwho
participated in the May hackathon, told D'Ignazio.

The new and improved breast pump designs fall into several
distinct categories, D'Ignazio said in her post. The first
improvement that many hackathon participants want to see has to
do with integrating the machine with more familiar and
easy-to-use technologies, such as
smartphones and tablets. Such a design upgrade would make it
easier not only to use the pump, but also to keep track of data
related to the pumping process, according to D'Ignazio.

Other future breast pump improvements could include adjustable
and "open source" parts that make it possible for women to have
greater say in the design of their pump. And the use of softer,
warmer materials in the design of this intimate object could also
go a long way toward making moms feel more comfortable with these
machines, according to hackathon participants.

More information about the "Make the Breast Pump Not Suck"
Hackathon can be found on the event's website.